sporadic, random playback freezes on Gigabeat

[michael.conner]

I'm getting random playback freezes on my F40.  It's fairly infrequent (has happened maybe five times over the last five weeks) and has happened with various daily builds from that time (including one from yesterday.)

What happens is this: playback stops mid-song or just after beginning playback and the Gigabeat becomes unresponsive.  Looking at the LCD, I still can make out the peak meters, and there seems to be no legible error message.  I have to use the battery switch on the bottom of the unit to reset it. It's happened primarily with Ogg Vorbis q4 files; however, it also happened last week with a 56k mono MP3 file.  The files themselves will play back fine after resetting the unit.  It's happened with and without crossfeed on. The only other non-default setting I have is replaygain on.

Anyone else having this? 

[Llorean]

I will say I haven't had a single freeze on my Gigabeat, period, over the last three weeks, and that's with a very large amount of use.

What SVN revision are you using right now, and do you know when the first freeze happened? (And of course, I assume, no patches).

[michael.conner]

I'm using r12617-070305 right now, no patches.  I'd have to say that it first happened sometime in the first week of February (when I first received my unit)... sorry that I can't be more specific.

[Mad Cow]

I've had 2 similar freezes, I've started using the Gigabeat about a week after rockbox came out for it. The same thing happened except the screen slowly faded into thin, random coloured lines. Both times playing mp3's (not sure of bitrate) I also have an F40.

[Llorean]

Have you been using playlists, the database, or folder based playback, and what sort of shuffle options are you using?

[michael.conner]

I've had it happen 4 out of 5 times with folder-based playback.  The time it happened last week with the mono mp3 file I'd created a playlist by adding the file itself.  Shuffle was off, as was repeat.

[Llorean]

That's very strange. I've been using my Gigabeat quite a lot since I got it (it's replaced my old primary player, at least until I install a new battery) without any freezes at all.

Do the freezes occur when nothing is happening, or is there anything about the freezes that is consistent (maybe it happens regularly a short time after you've been in the menu, or after you've had music playing for a while so it might be near a rebuffer?)

I have no idea right now so I'm trying to explore anything at all that might be a relationship between the freezes.

[michael.conner]

For me, it's pretty much been while nothing was happening, but the circumstances have been different each time.  Today, I was listening to an album while working and it was probably 5 tracks into it, so it may have been near a rebuffer.  Last week, it froze about 6 minutes into a podcast I was listening to in bed, so nothing was happening -- but the podcast itself was only about 18MB, so the entire thing would be in the buffer already, I assume. The very first time it happened, I'd just started an album by hitting play inside a folder... it barely got 2 seconds into the song before it stopped and became unresponsive.

I use my Gigabeat anywhere from 2-5 hours per day, and it's been pretty rock solid except for these seemingly random crashes.  Weird.

[michael.conner]

If it helps at all (don't know if it would or not, since it played correctly the next day), this is a file that the Gigabeat crashed on:

http://media.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/315/bsg_ep315_FULL.mp3

[Mad Cow]

I don't think the file matters, I've had mine crash in the plugins menu before. I'm pretty sure it's caused by rockbox accidentally sending a bad signal to the processor or some important piece of hardware and causing it to malfunction.

[Llorean]

Well, if they're Data Aborts, Illegal Instructions, or certain other types of errors, where it does something really wrong, you'll get a screen with a memory address. That paired with your SVN revision can actually help a lot in tracking down the error.

[fidjit]

I too have had random lockups (Gigabeat X60 ).

Again no rhyme or reason.

Appears to happen mainly when playing back though, doesn't matter if playlist or files.

Basically just locks up and stops playing  

No particular song or album, and on songs I've played before  

I've also had "no codec" errors even though I've played that song before.

I try to update the rockbox build as much as viably possible.

Other than that I'm really happy with the port.

Straight MP3s via drop and drag, no SAT encryption, ability to charge my Gigabeat via the USB cable while still playing via headphones.

It's got the lot.

I even mistakenly pressed on some music video clips one night  ( which I didn't even know I had in my music files ) while playing around and much to my suprise they started playing !!!!
Lip sync seemed a bit off but at least I know that if it keeps getting developed I can watch video clips ( not a major requirement but a nice to have )  
Well done guys, keep up the good work ( much is the pity I couldn't program to save myself  or I'd assist   )

[Mad Cow]

Well, if they're Data Aborts, Illegal Instructions, or certain other types of errors, where it does something really wrong, you'll get a screen with a memory address. That paired with your SVN revision can actually help a lot in tracking down the error.

They have no readable error message, everything just freezes and the screen turns into weird colours. Both times it's happened with different SVN version, no idea which because I don't keep track of those.

[Llorean]

I know you provide a customized build, Mad Cow. Are you running your custom build, or official unpatched builds when this happens?

[Mad Cow]

The first time was an official build, the second time was most likely my custom build.